Warm
by MrWriteside5
Summary: As Chiaki and Hajime have their first date, she wonders whether she can really say she exists.


Chiaki wasn't good at these things, so she was worried she'd freaked Hajime out when the word "yes" shot out of her mouth like a bullet train when he'd asked her on a date. A real, proper date, as he put it. She'd wanted to shrink into her hoodie when the word left her lips, not because she didn't mean it but because she was certain that it was the kind of overeager response that would get her docked in most of the dating sims she'd tried to play. Instead she watched as the light flush on Hajime's cheeks turned into a full on blush. He stammered as he suggested a meeting place and time: tomorrow, noon, the hotel lobby. Chiaki quietly agreed, incredibly conscious of the warmth rushing to her own cheeks.

_ Warmth._

Chiaki was almost always cold, even though this was supposed to be a tropical island. Hajime had asked her once while they were hanging out why she always wore her hoodie when it was so warm out. She couldn't remember what she said at the time. Probably something noncommittal about how she just liked it. The truth was the hoodie was the only thing keeping her at any kind of normal temperature. She'd wondered for a while if that was just a facet of her existence, her programming. The time Hajime had taken her to the ranch floated through her mind.

"It's so warm!" she'd exclaimed excitedly to Hajime when she finally worked up the courage to touch the cow.

"That's because it's alive," he'd replied, smiling at her.

As she lay on the bed of her cottage and drifted slowly to sleep, she thought about how the soft fur tickled her fingers lightly, how she could feel the gentle pulse of the cow's heart as she gently rubbed it's back. _ It's warm because it's alive. _The thought gently twirled around in her mind until it slowly began a death spiral, down into a deep, dark pit.

Because Chiaki was never warm. She never felt warm. And if she never felt warm, maybe she wasn't supposed to feel at all.

He came exactly when he said he would the next day. She had been there for a few hours already, hoping her usual arcade cabinet would calm her nerves. She hadn't been able to get anywhere near her high score, though. Her fingers seemed clammy, uncoordinated. It was as if she'd dunked them in ice water. Hajime walked in a little uncertainly, like he was scared a bear would leap out and attack him. At least she wasn't the only one feeling nervous.

"H-hey hey," she said. The first word of her typical greeting stuck in her throat the way peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth.

"Hey," he replied. He had a small, embarrassed grin on his face, the kind she'd come to adore from him.

"So, what did you have in mind for our d-date?" She brought a hand up to her face and began fidgeting with a small piece of hair.

"I was thinking we could go to the amusement park. It seemed the most, er, appropriate place for a first date I guess." He put his hand on the back of his neck. "I mean, if you want to go somewhere else, that's totally fine. I'm not exactly... experienced with this sort of thing either."

"No, no, that sounds like fun," she said with a small smile to show she meant it.

They walked there in silence, unsure of what to say, how to approach this. Chiaki stole some occasional glances, sometimes catching Hajime looking at her the same way. There was something in the way they looked at each other, something that made her remember that day at the ranch again.

_ Warmth._

Her hand twitched when they arrived at the fourth island together. She thought back to the dating sims she'd played in the past. They'd been hard enough, and most situations only had three or four options. Here the choices were basically endless, enough to make her head swim. She would have to sit here all day to calculate an optimal course of action, and then she'd still probably pick wrong. Still, though. She looked down at her hands. Still, one option seemed to present itself.

She didn't look at him when she took his hand. In fact, she very pointedly looked anywhere but at him when she did it, worried that the inevitable eye contact would make her lose her nerve. Even so she felt his eyes on her, even more intensely than she felt the sensation of his skin on hers. They stood at the entrance to the island for what felt like ages.

She was pretty sure she'd made the wrong decision when she felt his hand move. Surely their relationship had taken a hit. And she'd tried so hard. He didn't remove his hand, however. Instead, it simply rotated, allowing him to intertwine his long, nimble fingers with hers. She hazarded a glance his direction. He smiled, his face as red as hers felt. She returned the expression. Her heart skidded around her chest. It seemed to have already boarded the rollercoaster.

Conversation flowed naturally between them after that, like the heat between their palms. Time slipped, and before they knew it the sun had nearly made it's way below the horizon. Their hands were still interlocked, the same reassuring pressure between them. The same reassuring warmth.

They got dinner at the vendors' street on the fifth island. The sky was a gorgeous swirl of orange and red and dark blue. The lanterns emanated just the faintest bit of heat as they hung around Hajime and her. As they walked back she zipped her hoodie up against the cool night and watched the sky turn to black. A field of stars twinkled down at them.

"I had one more thing planned, if you're not too sleepy," Hajime said.

Chiaki realized she hadn't even thought of sleep that day. She was exhausted, certainly, but the thought of ending their date now hurt a little. She smiled softly. "Sure."

They went to the beach on the first island. After a bit of searching around, Hajime proudly produced a large blanket he'd snagged from the supermarket and hidden on the beach. "I heard that stargazing was a good first date idea." He lay out the blanket on the soft sand. The moon was full, its light glinting off the water as waves gently crashed against the surf. "You do _not_ want to know how much trouble it was to convince Monomi to let me leave it here," he said as she sat down next to him.

They started out apart, their hands touching lightly as they gazed up at thousands of brilliant, twinkling dots. Slowly, hesitantly, Chiaki turned until she was snuggled up against Hajime. Her head rest gently on his chest, so hard and firm like it had been when he caught her in the storage room. For a beat the worry, the fear came back. She'd gone too far this time and he'd reject her for sure. Her heart settled as his arm moved, as cautiously as she had, wrapping around her. His hand rested on her back, his fingers gently stroking her back. She moved a hand to rest on his chest, right above his heart. His heart was racing. Every beat pulsed through his chest into her hand, from there emanating through her whole body. Hajime was so warm, so alive, just like the cow she'd pet.

And she was not.

"Hey, are you alright?" Even his voice was warm, a sweet, pleasant cadence. It sounded the way caramel looked in candy commercials.

"Y-yeah," she said. She looked at him hesitantly and he gave her a half-smile.

"C'mon, you can tell me."

Her fingers rapped on his chest. She was quiet for a couple of minutes. Stars twinkled at her, dancing and shimmering stars she knew were really only cold lines of code like her, but were still beautiful and heartbreaking.

"Sometimes I worry about... if I'm really alive, I guess." She pouted. "That probably doesn't make much sense, does it?"

Hajime tilted his head to the side. "No, actually. I get what you mean..." He glanced down and smirked. "I think."

"Really?"

He nodded. "This is whole situation is just so crazy. Sometimes I wonder if it's a bad dream I'm waiting to wake from. If anything matters. That's kind of what yoh mean, right?" She nodded. "But then I think about everyone - Akane, Sonia, Kazuichi, Fuyuhiko..." his face flushed. "...And you. Especially you. And everyone else, even though they're... gone." His hand was more firmly situated on her back now, rubbing it. "The way I see it, all those memories and relationships we made have to mean something, you know. They... they..."

"They have to be real. Otherwise none of what we've gone through means anything." Chiaki finished. "That makes sense... I think."

She could feel their breaths intermingling between them, their heat standing out from the cooler night air. She continued. "Even if everything around us seems crazy, the way we feel about things, about each other is real. To us. Which is the closest thing we can get to it anyways." She smiled wide at him and snuggled closer. "Thanks, Hajime."

"Yeah, I'm glad I could help." He stared down at her, lips twitching as if he wanted to say something else. She had gotten better, she guessed, at reading that kind of thing.

"What is it?"

"Ah," he turned away, and she noticed his face grow slightly more red. "It's nothing. I don't want to... how did you put it? 'Drastically decrease the affection meter.' 'Lower all the flags in the story.'"

Chiaki moved her hand from Hajime's chest to his cheek and, gently but firmly, turned his head to face her. Their breath mingled again and brushed against their cheeks. She gave him her widest smile.

"You won't."

His lips were the warmest part of him, or that's how it felt as he pressed them gently against hers. It was a good kind if warmth, like the kind you got when sitting around a campfire. It started at the point of contact before spreading slowly throughout the rest of her, tingling where his hand held the back of her neck. She didn't know how long the kiss lasted, only that by the time it finished it had made its way to the tips of her toes. All throughout her body she could feel it. She looked up at Hajime after they broke apart and, for the first time on this island, she knew.

They were _ warm._

They were _ alive._


End file.
